First Epistle to the Corinthians

Later insertion in 6:20

The majority of early manuscripts end chapter 6 with the words δοξάσατε δὴ τὸν Θεὸν ἐν τῷ σώματι ὑμῶν, doxasate de ton theon en tō sōmati humōn, 'therefore glorify God in your body'. The Textus Receptus adds καὶ ἐν τῷ πνεύματι ὑμῶν, ἅτινά ἐστι τοῦ Θεοῦ, kai en to pneumati humōn, hatina esti tou theou, which the New King James Version translates as "and in your spirit, which are (i.e. body and spirit) God's".^[29] J. J. Lias, in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, notes that "these words are not found in many of the best MSS. and versions, and they somewhat weaken the force of the argument, which is intended to assert the dignity of the body. They were perhaps inserted by some who, missing the point of the Apostle's argument, thought that the worship of the spirit was unduly passed over."^[30]

Later insertion of 14:34–35

The most discussed textual integrity question in the letter concerns 1 Corinthians 14:34–35:

Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is something they want to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

Women as coworkers

Women appear in the letter as active members of the Corinthian mission. Paul relies for his news of the community's divisions on the household of Chloe (1 Corinthians 1:11), and he closes by sending greetings from Prisca and Aquila, in whose house a church met (1 Corinthians 16:19). Witherington notes that Paul elsewhere in his letters names women among his coworkers, a fact he weighs against a reading of 14:34–35 as a blanket silencing.^[72]

Marriage and mutuality (1 Corinthians 7)

In his instructions on marriage Paul addresses husband and wife in closely parallel terms. He directs spouses to give each other their conjugal due and states that "the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does" (1 Corinthians 7:4). Gordon Fee describes this as "the full mutuality of men and women in the marital issues" treated in the chapter.^[73] Raymond Collins observes that the parallel statements of verses 2 to 4 treat women and men alike, marked by the repeated "likewise" (ὁμοίως δὲ καί, homoiōs de kai, "and likewise also"), and concludes that "equality within the sexual relationship is the norm".^[74] Ben Witherington III argues that Paul organises the chapter around the conviction of Galatians 3:28 that there is "no male and female ... in Christ", applying it to questions of marriage, virginity, and celibacy.^[75] Craig Keener likewise reads Paul as adapting the conventions of his day "in the direction of mutuality".^[76]

Commentators set this reciprocity against the broadly patriarchal norms of Greco-Roman society, while cautioning that Paul was not without precedent. Collins notes that Paul's language "resonates with the moralists' discussion of sexuality" and echoes Stoic writers such as Hierocles and Antipater, for whom mutuality in marriage, including a shared claim on one another's body, was a recurring theme.^[74] Keener places Paul within this "particularly progressive stream" among his contemporaries, comparing him to the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, rather than treating him as an isolated voice.^[76]

Women must remain silent

See also § Later insertion of 14:34–35

In 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, it is stated that women must remain silent in the churches, and yet in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 it states they have a role of prophecy and apparently speaking tongues in churches. Many theories have emerged attempting to reconcile these two passages.

Other commentators identify a conflict with Romans 16:1,7, where Paul praises the activities of female church leaders.^[77][78]

Other scholars hold that verses 34–35 are authentic but address a specific situation in the Corinthian assembly rather than silencing all women in every church, so that the restriction does not conflict with 1 Corinthians 11:5, where women pray and prophesy.

One theory to resolve the tension between these texts by positing that wives were either contesting their husband's inspired speeches at church, or the wives/women were chatting and asking questions in a disorderly manner when others were giving inspired utterances. According to this view, their silence was unique to the particular situation in the Corinthian gatherings at that time, and Paul did not intend his words to be universalized for all women of all churches of all eras.^[79]

According to Craig Keener, "When Paul suggests that husbands should teach their wives at home, his point is not to belittle women's ability to learn. To the contrary, Paul is advocating the most progressive view of his day: despite the possibility that she is less educated than himself, the husband should recognize his wife's intellectual capability and therefore make himself responsible for her education..."^[80] He argues that the women in view were relatively uneducated wives who were disrupting the meeting with questions, and that Paul's remedy was for them to raise their questions at home, with education as the longer-term solution.^[81] Keener compares the instruction to 1 Corinthians 11:34 ("if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home"), which addresses disruptive conduct rather than forbidding the activity itself. He reads Paul's direction that husbands teach their wives at home as progressive for its setting: "the husband should recognize his wife's intellectual capability and therefore make himself responsible for her education".^[81]

Ben Witherington III likewise treats the verses as genuinely Pauline. He observes that Paul supports the instruction with an unusual accumulation of authorities, appealing to general church practice, the law, what is proper, the word of God, and his own apostolic authority, which Witherington takes as a strong mark of authenticity.^[82] Following James Hurley, he suggests the women were wives who claimed the gift of weighing or judging prophecy (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:29) and were questioning prophets, including their own husbands, in a way that overstepped; on this view the silence and "subordination" of verse 34 concern that specific practice, not speech in general.^[83]

Other scholars including Joseph Fitzmyer suggest that in verses 34–35, Paul may be quoting the position of some native Corinthian Christians regarding women who have been speaking out in cultic assemblies in order that he can then argue against it.^[84]

Kirk MacGregor believes Paul may be quoting the Corinthian men's prohibition of women speaking in assemblies in order to rebuke it. He argues the quotation starts at verse 33b with the adverb "As" Ὡς (Hōs) and ends with verse 35, with Paul's rebuke starting at verse 36 with "Or" ἢ (ē). He states this conjunction is used in 1 Cor (1:13, 6:16, 9:6, 11:22) to argue against the Corinthians' position and in 1 Cor (6:2, 10:22) to argue against a Corinthian practice. He also references other times in this first epistle where Paul quotes the Corinthians. In 1 Cor 6:12–13 “All things are permitted for me,” (NRSVue) twice. In 1 Cor 7:1–2 “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” (NRSVue). In 1 Cor 8:1 "all of us possess knowledge." (NRSVue). In 1 Cor 10:23 "All things are permitted," (NRSVue) twice. In 1 Cor 14:36 (NRSVue) the sentence is as such: "Or" ἢ (ē) > "are you" ὑμᾶς (hymas) > "the only [ones]" μόνους (monous), ending with an accusative masculine plural adjective. Due to Koine Greek being an inflected language, the gender of each Greek adjective must agree grammatically with the gender of the word that it's modifying. MacGregor outlines the lack of the feminine plural "monas" as further evidence towards his argument. He posits that Paul did not explicitly identify the false statement by the Corinthians due to the letter being specifically directed to them and that they already knew their own belief in this.^[85]

This quotation reading has been questioned. Ben Witherington III argues that the masculine μόνους (monous, "only") of verse 36 carries no special weight, since the whole passage is cast in the masculine and the form is "simply the gender-inclusive masculine as elsewhere in this chapter"; he concludes that the proposals of Odell-Scott and others "raise more questions than they answer", and that Paul is more probably anticipating the Corinthians' reaction to his own argument.^[72] Craig Keener, following D. A. Carson, similarly holds that the masculine of verse 36 "deprives the use of the masculine here of any evidential value".^[86]

Head covering

1 Corinthians 11:2–16 contains an admonishment that Christian women cover their hair while praying and that Christian men leave their heads uncovered while praying. These practices were countercultural; the surrounding pagan Greek women prayed unveiled and Jewish men prayed with their heads covered.^[87][88]

The King James Version of 1 Corinthians 11:10 reads "For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels," where "power" represents the Greek word exousia. Exousia is the subject of significant debate as to how it should best be translated. Other versions translate it as "authority". In many early biblical manuscripts (such as certain Vulgate, Coptic, and Armenian manuscripts), it is rendered with the word "veil" (κάλυμμα, kalumma) rather than the word "authority" (ἐξουσία, exousia); the Revised Standard Version reflects this, displaying 1 Corinthians 11:10^[89] as follows: "That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels."^[90] Similarly, a scholarly footnote in the New American Bible notes that presence of the word "authority (exousia) may possibly be due to mistranslation of an Aramaic word for veil".^[91] This mistranslation may be due to "the fact that in Aramaic the roots of the word power and veil are spelled the same."^[92] The last-known living connection to the apostles, Irenaeus, penned verse 10 using the word "veil" (κάλυμμα, kalumma) instead of "authority" (ἐξουσία, exousia) in Against Heresies, as did other Church Fathers in their writings, including Hippolytus, Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome, Epiphanius, Augustine, and Bede.^[90][93]

Scholars have propounded various meanings of the phrase "because of the angels" in v. 10. According to Dale Martin, Paul is concerned that angels may look lustfully at beautiful women, as the "sons of God" in Genesis 6 apparently did. Noting the similarity between the Greek word translated "veil" and the Greek word for a seal or cork of a wine jug, Martin theorizes that the veil acted not only to conceal the beauty of a woman's hair, but also as a symbolic protective barrier that "sealed" the woman against the influence of fallen angels.^[94] Other scholars, such as Joseph Fitzmyer, believe the angels spoken of here are not fallen angels looking lustfully at women, but good angels who watch over church services. Notably, the author of Hebrews mentions "entertaining angels" and evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests some Second Temple era Jews believed angels attended synagogue services. According to this view, Paul's concern is not that an angel looks lustfully, but simply that the appearance of an inappropriately dressed women might offend the heavenly guardians.^[95] A third interpretation comes from Bruce Winter, who theorizes that the "angels" spoken of are not heavenly beings at all, but simply human visitors. Winter notes that the Greek word translated "angels" literally means "messengers" and could refer to a visitor carrying a letter from afar, possibly even the epistle itself. In this view, Paul is concerned that if a visitor to a church service sees a married woman with her head uncovered, he may judge that woman to be promiscuous. Thus, Paul seeks to protect the church community's honor by ensuring that all members appear above reproach.^[96]

The head covering ordinance continued to be handed down after the apostolic era to the next generations of Christians; writing 150 years after Paul, the early Christian apologist Tertullian stated that the women of the church in Corinth – both virgins and married – practiced veiling, given that Paul the Apostle delivered the teaching to them: "the Corinthians themselves understood him in this manner. In fact, at this very day, the Corinthians do veil their virgins. What the apostles taught, their disciples approve."^[97] From the period of the early Church to the late modern period, 1 Corinthians 11 was understood by many to enjoin the wearing of the headcovering throughout the day – a practice that has since waned in Western Europe but has continued in certain parts of the world, such as in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and the Indian subcontinent,^{[98][99][100][101][102][103]} as well as everywhere by Conservative Anabaptists (such as the Conservative Mennonite Churches and the Dunkard Brethren Church), who count veiling as being one of the ordinances of the Church.^[104][105] The early Church Father John Chrysostom explicates that 1 Corinthians 11 enjoins the continual wearing the headcovering by referencing Paul the Apostle's view that being shaven is always dishonourable and his pointing to the angels.^[106]